Loot – A Nepali movie review

‘Loot‘ is a Nepali movie. It doesn’t cater the Bollywood flavor. Although the concept of item songs comes from Bollywood, and Loot has made a full use of it, that hasn’t ruined the Nepaliness in the movie.

The item song ‘Udhreko Choli’ and it’s popularity has helped in the marketing of the movie. But, that is not the whole story.Simplicity in story, the style of story telling, better than average acting, no nonsense scenes in the movie are some of the positive aspects in ‘Loot’.

‘Loot‘ is a story of a character named Kale (Saugat Malla) who tries to earn a lot of money in a short time and escape from his poverty. The luxury life in Kathmandu city attracts him very much. With that motivation, he partnered with four other guys with similar dream of earning a lot of money. The group makes a plan to rob a bank in Kathmandu. While they were making a group plan, each of the other four guys was conspiring to take all the money.  

The story of the movie is simple but the screenplay is awesome. Nischal Basnet has written a realistic script portraying the young Nepali guys in Kathmandu. Those dialogues are so common in the streets (and, so uncommon in movies) that you feel like it is a first-hand experience of the characters. There is no such thing as, a strong female character, so most of the dialogues are male centric.  Another good point of this movie is it’s item song performed by Sushma Karki. Other songs are average. The background score of Tshuji Karmacharya is average and not to the par.

All the actors Saugat Malla, Karma, Dayahang Rai, Reecha Sharma, Srijana Subba,Sushma Karki, Prateek Raj Neupane, Sushil Raj Pandey have given a good and realistic performance. Saugat Malla’s performance can be considered the best. Dayahang Rai’s character is funny and entertains the viewers. Reecha Sharma’s short and sweet appearance is also good. The cinematography of Purshottam Pradhan is appreciable. Pradhan has captured the Kathmandu city and local areas flawlessly. The movie hence gives a rare glimpse of the real life style of Kathmandu and its corners.

The climax of the movie however is somewhat low when compared to the flow of the movie. The movie retains the excitement from the start to the end of the movie, but the climax is not as good as expected to be. The producers Madhav Wagle and Narendra Maharjan have proved to be successful producers, yet again. Their movie ‘First Love‘ was also one of the hit movies last year and it is sure ‘Loot’ will follow suit.

The movie ‘Loot’ is more likely to be liked by the teenagers and youths of Kathmandu city. Out of Kathmandu, although the rural audience might not appreciate the movie, teens will surely like it. Those looking for melo-drama or commercial actions or high class music would certainly be disappointed.

Nischal Basnet should be appreciated for giving a good movie to Nepali movie industry.

(By Raunak Niroula)